Strip feeding means



Sept. 3, 1963 I T. F. ARONSON ETAL 3,102,673

STRIP FEEDING MEANS Filed June 9, 1958 5 Sheets-Sheet l FlG.l

l IN V EN TORS.

THEODORE F. ARONSON BY FLOYD A. LYON ATTORNEY.

STRIP FEEDING MEANS Filed June 9, 1958 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 WEB VELOCITY AT WORK LOCATION WORK TRAVEL WORK TRAVEL WORK FIG. 2

FiGQ4 IN V EN TORS Fl 6, 4 A THEODORE F. ARONSONX BY FLOYD A. LYON jw 0 0mm ATTORNEY.

Sept. 3, 1963 T. F. ARONSON ETAL 3,102,673

STRIP FEEDING MEANS 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed June 9, 1958 WORK WEB VELOCITY AT WORK LOCATION WORK TRAVEL WORK TRAVEL FIG. 2

IN V EN T 0R3 N O 3 MN 0 w E A mw DO 0L EF .m V. B G F }W U. WW

ATTORNEY.

- paper.

United States Patent 3,102,673 STRIP FEEDING MEANS Theodore F. Aronson, Glen Cove, and Floyd A. Lyon, Brookville, N.Y., assignors to Commercial Envelope Manufacturing Co., Inc., New York, N.Y.

Filed June 9, 1958, Ser. No. 740,669 4 Claims. (Cl. 226-28) This invention relates to high speed means for feeding a strip of material past a work place with constant speed, input and output but with intermittent motion at the work location.

The invention is illustrated in connection with the cutting for instance of envelope blanks in 21 Continuous strip or web. In the manufacture-of envelopes, the first step is to form individual blanks from a continuous strip of This is generally done by cutting a diamond shaped center aperture together with a pair of side notches for each blank.

There are several problems in getting high speed operation. If the paper is punched with a reciprocating type punch, then the strip must be stopped each time the punch operates. This requires intermittent motion of the heavy punch machine and makes the operation essentially one of low speed.

One of the solutions has been to mount the cutting dies on rollers. However, this has been found not practical since the positive and negative portions of the cutting dies wear out rapidly during rotary engagement.

The present invention provides a work station, for instance, a reciprocating punch type die cutter, and input and output drive means for the strip which have substantially constant speed. There is a certain amount of slack in the strip on each side of the cutter, and this slack is manipulated by a pair of rollers mounted on a rocking arm in synchronism with the cutter so that the paper at the cutter position is momentarily stopped at the time of cutting or punching or other work. in other Words, the input and output speed of the strip is substantially constant, but the speed in the vicinity of the cutter is varied so that the web motion past the cutter is intermittent while the average speed is constant and equal to the input and output speed. It is possible to achieve this result since the only thing intermittently controlled is the paper which has negligible weight. All other parts of the machinery which have appreciable weight run with constant or smooth varying motion. With the arrangement of the present invention it has been found that very high speed operation on the order of 1,0 00 cycles per minute can be obtained with up to twelve inches advance motion per cycle or 1,000 feet of web per minute.

Accordingly, a principal object of the invention is to provide new and improved strip or web material feeding means.

Another'object of the invention is to provide strip material feeding means having constant input and output speeds but intermittent motion at a work location.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved high speed cutting means for strip material.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved handling means for strip material.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved high speed cutting means for making envelopes.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved strip handling and processing means.

These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following specification and drawings, of which:

FIGURE 1 is a schematic drawing of an embodiment of the invention.

FIGURE 2 is a plot of web velocity at the work location against time.

FIGURE 3 is a front view of an embodiment of the invention.

FIGURE 4 is a partial side view of an embodiment of FIGURE 3, partially in section, and

FIGURE 4A is a detail view.

FIGURE 1 shows a schematic drawing of an embodiment of the invention. The strip or web 1 of material is fed from the roll of material 2 by a pair of driven rollers 3 and 5 over movable idler roller 7 and under idler roller 6. An input slack loop in the strip is formed around the roller 7 which is located between and above the rollers 5 and 6. The roller 7 is mounted on rocker arm 8 which is pivotally mounted on the main frame and fixedly connected to arm 9. Arm 9 is oscillated by the cam follower 11 mounted on the end of the arm 9 which rides in groove 10 in the flywheel cam 10:. The groove 10' may be approximately circular but mounted off center on flywheel cam 10.

On the output side of the central work location there are output idler roller 12, driven roller 13, and an oscillating idler roller 14 located between and above rollers 12 and 13, and mounted on the arm 8 so as to form an output slack loop in the strip. Roller 13' is connected to motor driven shaft M. Pressure idler rollers 5" and 13 bear against rollers 5 and 13.

At the work location is located a punch and die set comprising a lower fixedly mounted die 20 and the upper reciprocating die punch 21 which is adapted to be reciprocated up and down in synchronism with the oscillating arm 8 by means of crank arm 22 connected to flywheel cam 10, connecting rod 23 connected at its other end to shaft 24 of the movable die 21. Shaft -24- rides up and down in guide way 25 mounted on the main frame.

. All the rollers except those on the oscillating arm and all the gears are mounted on frame F Since the rollers 13 and 13' meter the strip, other work requiring accurate registration such as printing, gluing or perforating maybe done immediately following the rollers '13 and 13. FIGURE 1 shows a printing cylinder 60 and impression cylinder 61, these two cylinders being mounted on the frame and driven directly from the motor driven gear by means of the idler gears 62, 62. The type cylinder 60 is inked with a conventional arrangement comprising inking rollers 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, and 68 connected to the reservoir 69 all mounted on the frame F. The roller 67 may be mounted on an oscillating arm 67 Since the web is metered by the rollers 13 and 13' and the printing cylinders are directly geared to the roller 13, perfect registration for printing is obtained. Other work requiring registration such as perforating may also be done instead of printing or in addition thereto. Glue may be applied in the same manner as the printing, or in addition thereto. Other work means such as slitting means may be incorporated as desired. Since the registration is maintained, great flexibility may be used to perform various operations. For instance, a strip maybe perforated, printed, notched and slit along the axis for making several rows of tickets from one web or strip. Printing through an inked ribbon may be done at the central work location.

The operation of the device is as follows: The drive rollers 3 and 5 feed the paper 1 in at a constant speed K. Assume the arm 8 is in the position shown by the full lines and that the roller 7 is just starting to move upwardly. The speed of the upward motion of the roller 7 is chosen with respect to the web speed K so that all the slack will be taken up but there will be no motion of thepaper on the idler roller 6. Therefore, during a portion of the upward motion of the roller 7 there is no motion of the strip at the work location 20, 21 and the Work such as 3 punching, printing or cutting, as the case may be, is done during this period. As roller 7 accelerates up, the webat the work location slows down. During a portion of the upward motion of roller 7 the web stops at the work location and then starts to move again. At the same time as the roller 7 is going up, the roller 14, also on arm 8, is falling so that the output slack loop is being decreased.

When the roller 7 starts to fall, the roller 14 goes up increasing the output slack loop and pulling the paper past the work location during this period at approximately 2K, thereby completing one cycle. All the upward force of roller 14 is directed to move the paper past the work location as the paper cannot be retracted from roller 13. The paper movement portion of the cycle is long compared to the work portion, as shown in FIGURE 2, which is a plot of the web velocity at the work location. The plot is a periodic wave'having average speed equal to K and maximum speed equal to 2K.

FIGURE 3 shows a front view of an embodiment of the invention, and FIGURE 4- shows a partial side view of the embodiment of 'FIGURE 3.

Referring to the FIGURES 3 and 4, all the apparatus is mounted on a pair of side frame members F and F T heflywheel cam 10 is mounted on brackets 30- and 31 connected to the top of the frame members. The cam follower arm 9 is mounted on shaft 33 which is journalled to the frame F The oscillating arm 8 is fixedly connected to the shaft 33 and the oscillating rollers 7 and 14 are mounted at opposite ends of the oscillating arm 8. There is a corresponding oscillating arm 8' on shaft 33 journalled to the other frame member F to support the other ends of the rollers 7 and 14.

The input roller is journalled to and between the frame members F and F Pressure idler roller 5' is mounted on lever 17 which is pivotally connected to the frame and spring loaded against roller 5 by spring 17'. There is a corresponding lever on the other side. The input idler roller 6 is not journalled directly to the frames but is pivotally mounted on the frames by means of the bracket 34 and a corresponding bracket on the other side. The bracket 34 is pivotally mounted on the frame F on shaft 35 and is spring loaded by means of the spring 36. The out put idler roller '12 is similarly pivotally mounted on the bracket 37. The purpose of these mounting-s is to provide a slight giving under tension of the web P so that there is lessdanger of tearing the web when it is moved. Adjustment screws 34' and 37' are provided to adjust the positions of rollers 6 and 12. Output drive roller 13 is journalled to the side frames. Pressure idler roller 13 is mounted on lever 18 and spring loaded against roller 13 by spring .18";

All of the rotating parts are driven by a motor shaft M through direct gearing, the gears being mounted on the frame. The motor drive gear 41 is directly connected to idler gears 42 and 43 which are journalled to the frame P The idler gear 43 is directly connected to gear 44 which is fixedly connected to the crankshaft cam flywheel 10. Coming down the other side of the frame F the gear 44 is directly connected to idler gears 45 and 46 which are journalled to the frame F Gear 46 is directly connected to gear 49 which is fixedly connected to the input drive roller 5. The gear 49 is also directly connected to gear 49' which contacts gear 47 which in turn is directly connected to the roller 3, journalled to the frame.

Referring more particularly to FIGURE 4 the cam arm 9 is mounted on a shaft 33 which is journalled to the frame F by bearing 54-. The cam follower 9' rides in the groove of the flywheel cam 10. This groove may be approximately a circle having its center offset so that the arm 9oscillates as described in connection with FIG- URE 1. The flywheel cam 10 is mounted on a shaft 52 which is journalled to the bracket 30 connected to the top of the frame F Corresponding shaft 52' is journalled to the bracket 31 mounted on top of the bracket F A flywheel 53 is connected to the other end. of he. shaft 52.

The shafts 52 and 52' are connected at the center of the apparatus by crank arms 22, 22', and pin 29 which connects them to the connecting rod 23 which is pivotally connected at its lower end to a cutting die 20, 21, or other reciprocating work apparatus. The particular work to be done may be varied as desired, and of course, various dies may be substituted for performing various operations on the web.

More specifically, the reciprocating portion of the embodiment of FIGURES 3 and 4 comprising the crankshaft, connecting rod 23, and the moving parts connected thereto may be a commercially available punch press arrangement. As shown in FIGURE 4 the connecting rod 23 is connected to the crank arms 22, 22. The connecting arm 23 terminates at its lower end in a ball 23 which rests in a socket 6G in the portion 61 of the member 60. The member 60 is a heavy casting which slides up and down on a pair of bronze-gibs 62 and 63 fastened to it. The upper part of the casting is a well portion 64 through which the connecting rod extends. The ball 23 of the connecting rod is held in the socket by means of a retainer nut 65. The member 60 slides in V-shaped ways in a pair of steel side members 66 and 67 which are secured to the side frames by the bolts 70*, 71 and 72, '73. The members 66 and 67 have openings 66' and 67 to accommodate the oscillating arms 8 and 8'. The portion of the member 60' containing the socket 60 is rounded out and moves with the bronze gibs 62, 63 to which it is fixedly connected. The oscillating arm 8 is fixedly connected to the other end of the shaft 33, being bolted to bracket 55 which is brazed to shaft 33. There is a corresponding shaft 33 on the other side journalled into the frame F by means of the bearing 56, and corresponding oscillating arm 8 is fixedly mounted on the end of the shaft 33- by means of bracket 57. The rollers 7 and 14- Iare mounted between the arms 8' and 8' at one end thereof as shown in FIG- URE 4A.

The paper P enters the apparatus onto the driven input roller 3, then around rollers 5, 7, and 6 through the work location, then around output rollers 12, 14, and 13. The input and output slack loops around the rollers 7 and 14 mounted on the oscillating arm 8 are manipulated by the oscillating arm Sin accordance with the oscillating movement of the arm 9 in response to the cam action of the cam follower 9' and the cam groove 10" on the cam wheel 10. All the driven rollers operate at constant speed and the input and output slack loops are manipulated in synchronism with the work apparatus so that the velocity of the web past the work location is intennittent as substantially shown on the graph of FIGURE 2, namely, as a periodic wave flattened out at the top and bottom to permit a small time per cycle for the work.

The present invention is not limited to a specific work apparatus and various dies or punches, knives or gluing or other apparatus may be used as desired. The important feature is that the work apparatus is synchronized with the paper moving apparatus so as to obtain high speed operation.

Various modifications may be made in the invention without departing from the scope thereof. For instance, different mechanical mounting or drive means may be used. For instance, a chain drive could be used instead of a gear drive or other oscillating members. could be used instead of the rotatably mounted As previously mentioned the reciprocating die punch portions; of the embodiment shown are conventional and various types of conventional punch presses could be used in connection with the present invention. The invention is not limited to reciprocatiing Work means but could be used with rotary work means, for instance, a gluing wheel having periodically spaced gluing brushes which would operate at low speed so that the gluing brushes would contact predetermined portions of the web at those instants when the web is stationary, the rotary wheel being synchronized with the motion of the web.

We claim:

1. High speed means for continuously feeding a web of material past a work location at an intermittently varying speed comprising means to keep said web under taut control including a substantially constant speed positive pinching roller input drive, a substantially constant speed positive pinching roller output drive, means to locate and maintain a predetermined work plane of the web material comprising first and second roller guide means whose surfaces are tangent to said predetermined plane, a first oscillating idler roller between said input means and said first roller guide means and a second oscillating idler roller between said second guide means and said output means, said oscillating idler roller being mounted on each end of an oscillating arm, a cam connected to oscillate said arm and drive means directly connected to continuously rotate said cam, work means at said work location to provide equally spaced punches in said web, means to adjust equally spaced punches with respect to a succeeding work station while running at full speed including means to adjust said roller guide means, and means to spring load said roller guide means to take up strains in the web, whereby said oscillating arm is manipulated to form two controlled slack loops to vary the speed of the web past the work location while the output and input drives remain at a substantially equal and constant speed.

2. High speed means 'for continuously feeding a web of material past a work location at an intermittently varying speed comprising a substantially constant speed pinching roller input drive, a substantially constant speed pinching roller output drive, means to locate and maintain a predetermined work plane of the Web material comprising first and second roller guide means whose surfaces are tangent to said predetermined plane, a first oscillating idler roller between said input means and said first roller guide means and a second oscillating idler roller between said second guide means and said output means, said oscillating idler rollers being mounted on each end of an oscillating arm, a cam connected to oscillate said arm and drive means directly connected to continuously rotate said cam, work means at said Work location to provide equally spaced punches in said Web, and means to adjust equally spaced punches with respect to a succeeding work station, while running at full speed including means to adjust said roller guide means, whereby said oscillating arm is manipulated to form two controlled slack loops to vary the speed of the web past the Work location while the output and input drives remain :at a substantially equal and constant speed.

:3. Means for feeding strip material past a work location, Work means at said work location to provide equally spaced punches in said web, comp-rising substantially constant speed driven input roller means, substantially constant speed driven output roller means, means to adjust equally spaced punches with respect to a succeeding work station while running at full speed including input and output idler rollers tangent said plane at said work location, a first oscillatable roller between said constant speed and idler input rollers to manipulate an unloaded controlled input slack loop in said strip, a second oscillatable roller between said contant speed and idler output rollers to provide an output slack loop in said strip, said first and second oscillatable rollers being mounted on oscillating means whereby said slack loops are manipulated so that the motion of said strip past said work location is intermittent, and work means for operating on said strip, said work means being connected to operate in synchronism with said oscillating means.

4. High speed means for processing paper envelope blanks in web form comprising constant speed driven input roller means, constant speed driven output roller means, 13. work station, work means at said work station to provide equally spaced punches, means to adjust equally spaced punches with respect to a succeeding work station, while running at full speed including pivotally mounted input and output idler rollers at said work location, a first oscillatable roller between said constant speed and idler input rollers to provide an input unloaded slack loop in said strip, a second oscillatable roller between said constant speed and idler output rollers to provide and manipulate an output slack loop in said strip, said first and second oscillatable rollers being mounted on opposite ends of an oscillating arm whereby said slack loops are manipulated so that the motion of said strip past said Work location is intermittent.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 439,723 Cox Nov. 4, 1890 1,742,756 Cox et a1 Jan. 7, 1930 1,905,446 Dewey et a1 Apr. 25, 1933 2,649,867 Powell Aug. 25, 1953 2,655,098 Dutro Oct. 13, 1953 2,655,212 Stewart Oct. 13, 1953 2,667,924 Dutro Feb. 2, 1954 2,776,607 Fischer Ian. 8, 1957 

1. HIGH SPEED MEANS FOR CONTINUOUSLY FEEDING A WEB OF MATERIAL PAST A WORK LOCATION AT AN INTERMITTENTLY VARYING SPEED COMPRISING MEANS TO KEEP SAID WEB UNDER TAUT CONTROL INCLUDING A SUBSTANTIALLY CONSTANT SPEED POSITIVE PINCHING ROLLER INPUT DRIVE, A SUBSTANTIALLY CONSTANT SPEED POSITIVE PINCHING ROLLER OUTPUT DRIVE, MEANS TO LOCATE AND MAINTAIN A PREDETERMINED WORK PLANE OF THE WEB MATERIAL COMPRISING FIRST AND SECOND ROLLER GUIDE MEANS WHOSE SURFACES ARE TANGENT TO SAID PREDETERMINED PLANE, A FIRST OSCILLATING IDLER ROLLER BETWEEN SAID INPUT MEANS AND SAID FIRST ROLLER GUIDE MEANS AND A SECOND OSCILLATING IDLER ROLLER BETWEEN SAID SECOND GUIDE MEANS AND SAID OUTPUT MEANS, SAID OSCILLATING IDLER ROLLER BEING MOUNTED ON EACH END OF AN OSCILLATING ARM, A CAM CONNECTED TO OSCILLATE SAID ARM AND DRIVE MEANS DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO CONTINUOUSLY ROTATE SAID CAM, WORK MEANS AT SAID WORK LOCATION TO PROVIDE EQUALLY SPACED PUNCHES IN SAID WEB, MEANS TO ADJUST EQUALLY SPACED PUNCHES WITH RESPECT TO A SUCCEEDING WORK STATION WHILE RUNNING AT FULL SPEED INCLUDING MEANS TO ADJUST SAID ROLLER GUIDE MEANS, AND MEANS TO SPRING LOAD SAID ROLLER GUIDE MEANS TO TAKE UP STRAINS IN THE WEB, 